Discover Wildflowers in Regional Parks!
Sonoma County’s beautiful landscape is enhanced every spring by gorgeous displays of wildflowers. Sonoma County’s Regional Parks offer some of the best opportunities to see a variety of wildflowers in bloom. I recommend that wildflower lovers look at and even download the wonderful guide Sonoma County’s Best Spring Wildflower Walks, created by our Greenway Partner, the Regional Parks Department.
This guide describes the wildflower displays and selected trails found at seven inland Regional Parks: Crane Creek, Foothill, Helen Putnam, Shiloh Ranch, Sonoma Valley, Taylor Mountain and Tolay Lake. Each park description includes a tip on what to see and a link to iNaturalist where flower lovers share their photos and comments on observed flowers.
Before you go, be sure to download a digital copy of the Regional Park’s Wildflower Guide, which provides photos and descriptions of the most common wildflowers, organized by color.
Good digital maps of the trails in each park can be found at Sonoma County Regional Parks – Find a Park.
Sonoma Valley Regional Park is the park that my wife and I have visited most often because it is closest to where we live and has a variety of trails from flat, paved, and accessible to steep up-and-down. The wildflowers are impressive every time we go to Sonoma Valley, and I can recommend the Woodland Star Trail, named for an endangered flower, and the adjoining Buttercup, Milkmaid and Suttonfield Lake trails.
Written by Bob Gaiser – avid hiker, photographer, and co-chair of the Southeast Greenway Campaign